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I DO not know how many of the Herald readers saw the recent programme in BBC1 on the plight of a Scottish farmer who had to give away his lambs at a rock bottom price of £5 a head. I can assure you all upland and hill farmers here in Wales are in a similar position.

To us upland farmers it is slightly easier just now, but hill farmers rely on their autumn sales of small lambs for export. Our masters (the ruling government) in Brussels still have not lifted the ban on our lamb exports. This has decimated our sheep industry and all because DEFRA was not taking care of bio security in its Pirbright laboratories.

You can be sure they will not take the blame nor give any relief or funding for farmers’ plight. I have nearly 100 lambs ready for sale now, but the price is so ridiculously low my selling them next week will result in a considerable loss compared to last year’s prices. Other hill farmers are in a similar desperate situation as simply this time of year grass deteriorates and lambs must be got rid of (even at such a low price as 68p a kilo), as simply to hold on to them will result in feeding, but feed costs are up.

To ordinary folk this may just sound as a sad story. Unfortunately to us farmers it is a devastation of utmost reality, which will leave a lot of us financially destitute.

Yet when it is all worked back to the source of the foot-and-mouth and we see it is the Government’s fault coupled with the EU’s intransigence on exports ban; the chances of compensation to farmers will be pittance.

We would like public support to buy Welsh lamb in our stores, not, please, New Zealand now in our shops!

ELWYN WILLIAMS

(Sheep farmer)Penygroes

Unhelpful

IT is a disappointment to hear that the plans for a major tourist project at Glynrhonwy, Llanberis have been withdrawn. Let us hope that this disused quarry can soon find a useful economic future to help improve the economy of Arfon.

However even more disturbing is to hear that the backers of the project feel Gwynedd Council were obstructive in their attitude to the potential for significant investment.

Many of us know the difficult choices which a council sometimes has to make when trying to regenerate their local economy. The easy bit is sitting back to criticise the project plan being submitted, but more helpful is to get alongside the developer and help to shape the project as the council wishes. In the light of this what did the Plaid Cymru MP and AM do to help bring the council and developer closer together?

MARTIN EAGLESTONE

Arfon Labour Party

Let ’em down

SURELY it is not only camper vans but cars, small tents, vans, etc, that litter lay-bys around here, leaving all their filthy litter behind, having no toilet facilities.

I sympathise with the council, who would, I suppose, have to employ officers to stay all night to prove “overnight parking”, and they also appear to want to enlist the assistance of the police.

That, I fear, is doomed to fail, as many officers will be busy dealing with the drunks choosing a cheap overnight stay.

Perhaps the answer is to form a group of “letters down”, who could simply let the air out of the tyres of their vehicles? Angry telephone calls to local garages the next morning would surely and simply prove the offences.

DISGUSTED

(Name and address supplied)

Challenges

AFTER stoking up election fever to a crescendo at the Labour Conference, for Gordon Brown to chicken out having got all Labour’s activists keyed up to fever pitch, just waiting for him to fire the starting gun, must have dealt a huge psychological blow to the party he now leads.

He played things well in the initial stages of his premiership by not rushing over to meet Bush, but going to France and Germany first, then travelling over attired like an ordinary business man in a pinstriped suit carrying a briefcase or something similar. He certainly showed he was not ready to be patted on the head or patronised, nor wishing to succeed Tony as Bush’s new blue-eyed boy.

The downside to his American visit is that Downing Street is still under the impression there is some sort of mystical bond between them and the White House known as the “special relationship”. Westminster has played second fiddle to Washington DC ever since the end of the Second World War.

On the home front Gordon has got his work cut out to rectify 10 years of Tony’s misrule, following 18 years of Tory monetarism. The shambolic state of the Home Office, which in a move of desperation the previous supremo chopped in half, is just as bad as it ever was. The tax and benefit system is now so fiendishly complicated that the Inland Revenue, whom one would imagine were the experts in this field, assess people’s tax position wrongly more often than not. In fairness this is due to constant tax and benefit changes, and pressure on staff caused by constant reduction in their numbers.

The NHS, and related topics, Gordon Brown considers his number one priority, closely followed by education, both of which have deteriorated markedly since Blair took over in 1997.

Apart from whether the polls are up or down for Brown or Cameron, I have a sneaking feeling worried Labour MPs in Scotland and Wales told Gordon the Tories are not the only people he SHOULD worry about!

TREFOR DAVIES

Llanfrothen

No such road

LAST week you published a letter by a lady from Caernarfon referring to what she called the St David’s Road Cemetery, Nefyn.

May I, with respect, point out that there is no St David’s Road in Nefyn. We have Ffordd Dewi Sant, which is clearly indicated on the appropriate street name plates. It is not, and never has been, St David’s Road.

There is no reason or excuse to translate the name, any more than there is to translate Piccadilly Circus, London; Les Champs Elysées, Paris; or Unter den Linden, Berlin. A name is a name is a name, and does not require translation.

By the way, there is no community council in Nefyn either. The former Borough of Nefyn, like the former Borough of Caernarfon, now has a town council.

DR ROBYN LÉWIS

Nefyn

Marina hope

I HOPE that Gwynedd Council and their consultants will be able to overcome the reported scepticism of Pwllheli’s Chamber of Trade and Marine Traders Association over plans for a new sailing academy there. Anyone who have visited seaside resorts in France, especially in Brittany, will have marvelled at the sight of fleets of sailing dinghys accompanied by their powerboat “instructor/guardian”.

Sailing schools are everywhere.

Sailing, often including coastal navigation, is part of the curriculum, sport and recreation of schools within reach of the coast.

Pwllheli, our schools and young people in the neighbourhood will benefit greatly by following this example.